Favorite Line: “As a kid who’d been raised in Hollyweird, she’d pretty much seen everything.” (p. 8 )
When Dawn Madison receives a phone call from her father’s P.I. associates, she reluctantly returns to Los Angeles to help search for him. It isn’t long before she finds herself at a “Black-Dahlia-dollhouse,” speaking to a blank television screen, while feeling extremely aroused.
Dawn shakes off her body’s craving for sex and begins investigating her father’s last known case with the help of a little person and a techy Lantina. She meets PI Matt Lonigan, a man full of secrets, and keeps feeling amorous. It isn’t long before Dawn learns monsters are real, and stars never die.
Book one in the Vampire Babylon series, Night Rising, is a fantasy published by Penguin. It isn’t new in many ways, because we already know vampires exist. But in other ways, new territory is being created by the different levels of darkness. The vampires are dark, but intelligent. They don’t call attention to themselves, yet still manage to instill fear and punish, without killing.
The shady side of the movie business is explored, issues of parents living life through their children are touched upon, and coming to terms with the past becomes imperative for all characters in Night Rising.
The story doesn’t end with the last page of the book though, as many plot lines travel into the second book of the series. It’s slightly aggravating, but the main plot is addressed sufficiently. My biggest dislike in the book was the need to insert sex inappropriately. I get that Dawn has “Daddy issues, “(don’t most of us?) but adding her sexual urges does little to help me get to know Dawn and her feelings.
It certainly didn’t make me more interested in the series. I don’t think any one thing hooked me on the series. I don’t feel a need or urgency to buy the next book. That said, I wouldn’t turn away the book if it were given to me or on sale.
Other reviews liked, disliked and were so-so about the book: The Dragon Page, Dear Author and Otherworld. What do you think?
Scooper Speaks 
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